


Lean and Hungry

by tentacletherapissed



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Yagami Light Is Not Kira (Death Note), Character Study, F/F, F/M, M/M, Misa Amane has PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, but i do intend to finish, eventual pairings but theyre all implied and can be easily ignored, i will not have a regular posting time, this isnt a romance fic lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:55:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27734179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentacletherapissed/pseuds/tentacletherapissed
Summary: On November 28th, 2003, Light Yagami picked up a Death Note and began using it as Kira. On March 20th, 2004, Misa Amane inherited a Death Note and began using it to help him. But what if that wasn't how it happened? A Misa-centric AU where Misa gets her Death Note before Light gets the chance to, changing fate for everyone.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	1. Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Up-and-coming model Misa Amane is trying to keep her head up while struggling to convict the man that killed her parents.

“We gather in the court this 12th day of November, 2003, for the continuation of The People of Kyoto vs. Kenshin Kuroda, for the second degree murder of Hikari and Aiko Amane. The court is now in session. Are all parties present?”  
  
“Yes, your honor. My name is Masashi Saito. I am acting on behalf of the accused.”  
  
“Very well. I will now call the defendant to begin their case. Please call your first witness.”  
  
“Thank you, your honor. The defendant calls Misa Amane to the stand.”  
  
Misa’s breath hitched slightly; she tugged the length of her skirt to midway down her thighs before standing to make her way to the front of the room. Her lawyer had told her to dress more modestly to these trials, so she had bought herself a fitted beige blazer to wear because it had looked crisp and put together on the mannequin. And she had forgone wearing any wigs; her long black hair was neatly combed and fell elegantly down her back. But her skirt was still too short. She hadn’t been able to help herself; she had loved the way it paired with her jacket and her little red hat in the mirror, and in the moment it had looked professional but not without that chic touch that reminded everyone she was Misa-Misa, the up and coming model. But now, standing in front of the cold-eyed courtroom, she no longer felt like Misa-Misa. She felt like Misa Amane, the girl who had watched her parents die in front of her and somehow couldn’t convince the rest of the world that she remembered it properly.  
  
“Would you like to affirm or swear an oath?” The judge asked.  
  
“Affirm.”  
  
“Do you affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”  
  
“Yes.” She said. She had meant to make it sound firm and confident, but it fell out of her mouth clumsily in her nervous rush.  
  
“Please state your name for the record.”  
  
“My name is Misa Amane. I am the daughter of the victims.”  
  
Her face burned inexplicably as she said this. It wasn’t the first time they’d called her to the stand. She’d been to every one of these stupid trial sessions for the past few months, ever since that day back in May. Five months and twenty-four days, and where had it gotten her? The man who had murdered her parents was still in that same room with her. She could feel him getting more and more smug every time the court convened. If this stupid case went on for much longer, Misa was afraid she’d never get to see that monster behind bars.  
  
“Miss Amane, will you please tell the court what you remember from the night of May 19th, 2003?”  
  
She swallowed dryly and leaned towards the microphone. “It was late.” She said. “I was asleep, and then I woke up to the sound of some kind of scuffle downstairs. There was some banging, and clattering, and I heard my parents run down. I wasn’t sure what was going on…”  
  
Her voice began wavering, and she locked eyes with her lawyer. _You have to stay calm._ He had told her last time. _The more sure you sound of yourself, the more likely they are to believe you._  
  
She paused, swallowed again, and then continued. “On my alarm clock, I saw that it was just past 11 pm. I could hear my parents begin shouting downstairs, and another voice I didn’t recognize, shouting louder and angrier. It made me scared. But I wanted to see what was going on. I wanted to make sure my parents were alright. So I walked to the top of the stairs, quietly.”  
  
Her heart was pounding in her chest. Images flashed through her mind like a slideshow, and she gripped the glossy wood of the podium, trying to ground herself. _It’s November 12th. You’re not there. Keep going._  
  
“I heard my mother, she was crying…” Her voice was trembling again, but she was afraid that if she stopped now she wouldn’t be able to continue. “She was begging with the stranger. She said ‘Please, you can take whatever you want, but don’t hurt us or our little girl.’ And he said, ‘There’s nothing down here but worthless shit. I bet your pretty little daughter has some nicer things for me.’ And my parents started screaming… they didn’t want him to go upstairs. They didn’t want to put me in danger.” She was dimly aware that there were tears streaming down her face, and she tried to brush them away nonchalantly with a shaking hand. “Then I heard… I heard gunshots… and I ran downstairs… and…”  
  
_They’re laying on the floor. On your floor. Your mother’s nightgown is stained red, spreading from a spot on her chest, your father’s glasses sit broken next to his face, and you realize with a horrible sinking feeling that your parents are dead, and your head feels fuzzy and your lungs feel like they’re being crushed into dust, and then you look up, and you see a man standing above them holding a shotgun with shaking fingers and a crazed look in his eyes…_  
  
“ _I saw him!_ ” She choked, digging her ruby red nails into the podium. “I saw him standing over my dead parents, and he saw me, and then he turned and ran. It was _him_.” She pointed vindictively across the room, knowing exactly where he was seated but not daring to look him in the eyes again for fear that it would draw her back into that day. “He’s the man who killed my parents.”  
  
The room felt deadly silent. All she could hear was her own unsteady breathing, loud as a symphony in her ears.  
  
“Miss Amane, seeing your parents dead on the floor put you in quite an emotional state, didn’t it?” Saito said calmly.  
  
“Objection!” A clear voice rang sharply through the room.  
  
“Withdrawn.” Saito said, with a note of annoyance. “Miss Amane, how did it make you feel to see your parents lying dead on the floor?”  
  
“Awful.” She said, in a voice that was barely a whisper. “It was the worst feeling in the world.”  
  
“And does it upset you at all to have to think about that moment again?”  
  
She wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly the kind of case that scumbag and his filthy lawyer were trying to build for themselves. But there was no way to answer his questions any differently. She wiped her face again. “Yes.”  
  
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury;” Saito began. “The witness described herself as feeling ‘scared’ and ‘awful’ during the events that took place on that night. She admits that even recounting these events upsets her. I would now like to bring attention to the studies that have been done on false convictions, based on unreliable testimony from witnesses who were too hysterical to properly remember--”  
  
“ _I am not hysterical! I know what I saw!_ ”  
  
“Objection!”  
  
“Order!” The judge tapped his gavel briefly on the sound block. “Miss Amane, please hold your tongue.”  
  
A bubbling pit of anger began forming in Misa’s stomach, and she scowled at Saito in rage. With a small smirk dancing on his lips, he continued:  
  
“As you can see, this young girl is clearly not in the right state of mind for her testimony to be taken as fact--”  
  
“ _I am not a young girl!_ ” Misa shrieked, leaning over the edge of her podium venomously.  
  
“ _Objection!_ ”  
  
“ _I’m nineteen years old, and I know what I saw! I know who killed my own damn parents!--_ ”  
  
“ _Miss Amane!_ ”  
  
She recognized that voice. It was different from Saito, different from the judge. The same voice who had objected to Saito’s leading question earlier. The same voice that now echoed in her head once more, warning her to stay calm, to not get overly emotional during her testimony.  
  
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I must admit I am growing impatient with Mr. Kuroda and his defendant.” Misa’s lawyer began in a carefully reserved tone. “This is not the first time my client has been called as a witness and asked to recount the events of that night, and it is not the first time her testimony has been called into question. I refute this implication that the only thing pointing towards Mr. Kuroda’s guilt is the testimony of one girl. So far, the accused has only been able to provide an alibi from his mother, who claimed he was sleeping in his room on the night of the incident, but avoided further questioning and could not confirm that she had seen him in his room at the exact moment the crime took place. I, for one, am curious to know why the accused owns a gun of the same model that was identified in the autopsy as having been the murder weapon for the two victims, and I don’t see how forcing my client to recall such a devastating incident would help to answer that question.”  
  
Misa’s heart filled with warmth, and she barely managed to suppress a smile. He was stone-faced and sharp-tongued, her lawyer, but she knew he truly cared about bringing people to justice, and for that she was eternally grateful.  
  
“Your honor, on behalf of my client, I would like to withhold further questions until I can present another witness for the court.” said Saito.  
“Very well. Would the prosecutor like to take any further actions at this time?”  
  
“None at this time, your honor.”  
  
“Very well. The court will reconvene at the next scheduled meeting. The judge knocked his gavel briefly on the block once again. “Adjourned.”  
  
The tension in the courtroom instantly dissolved. Misa let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and stood up, desperate to get out.  
  
“Misa.” She felt her lawyer’s voice quietly in her ear. “Can we talk outside?”  
  
Her eyes fell to the ground and she nodded slightly. She should have expected this.  
  
When they were outside of the courtroom, he turned to look at her up and down.  
  
She sighed. “I know, I know, I shouldn’t have gotten upset, and I shouldn’t have started crying, and I shouldn’t have worn this skirt.”  
  
“Misa.” He began, in a voice that was firm but not unkind, as he placed his hands gently on her shoulders and looked down to meet her gaze. “I know what you’re saying is true. I know you know that, too. I know that-- _man_ ,” A look of anger flickered briefly across his face-- “Is guilty, and I know he knows that too. But you have to understand, just being right isn’t enough in these situations. You have to _convince _everyone that you’re right. And you must believe me when I say that I want to see Kenshin Kuroda locked behind bars as much as you do… but Misa, if you don’t work with me here, I’m starting to fear that we may never see that happen. If you continue to react in the way that you did, you’re only feeding into his trap.”  
  
His tone softened, and he dropped his hands to his sides again. “Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”  
  
“Yes.” She said, because she did, and she knew that of course he was right. “Thank you. I don’t know what I would do without you.”  
  
The corners of his lips twitched up briefly. He wasn’t one for smiling, but every time she told him how grateful she was his lips would twitch up in the same way. She knew he prided himself greatly in being able to defend and protect people like her.  
  
“That’s what I’m here for.” He said. Then his eyes scanned her, more serious. “Now listen, Misa: With the way things are going right now, I expect Saito’s next move is to bring your therapist as a witness. Can you think of anything you may have said to her that could serve against you?”  
  
She frowned. “I… I don’t know… she says I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from that day. She’s mostly trying to help me get over it, I think.”  
  
“That’s not good.” He muttered. “They’ll use that to further their proof that you’re not in the right state of mind to be giving a testimony-- I _know_ it’s not true, Misa, I’m just telling you that’s what they’ll say.” He said, noticing the flash of anger on her face. “Just… see if you can talk to her before the next date, and make her aware of the situation. We can still do this. I believe in you.”  
  
She smiled at him and nodded, once, in affirmation. “I believe in you too, Mikami. We’ll definitely win this.”  
  
“You know, I’ve already told you, you can call me Teru.” He said with another slight smile, adjusting his glasses as he turned to leave.__

_____

There is no color in the Shinigami realm. Only an endless landscape of grays and blacks, and the ashen white hue of half-buried skeletons in the sandy ground. The only color comes from the Shinigami themselves, in accents of deep blue and rich purple, or the occasional vibrant display of gold and jewels.  
  
“Today’s the day, isn’t it?” Says Rem, towering over her much smaller friend. “The day the human girl dies.”  
  
“I just don’t understand.” Gelus sounds breathy, desperate, almost pained. Far too emotional for how a Shinigami ought to talk. “She seems so full of life. It’s… not fair.”  
  
Rem stares into the swirling portal into the human world. Like everything else, it is framed in a dull, dark grey. She kneels down next to her friend. She can’t pretend it hasn’t piqued her interest, this human girl Gelus can’t take his eyes off of, young and bright and full of life despite everything that the world seems to have thrown at her, all the while unaware of the ticking time bomb above her head set to go off far too soon. She doesn’t understand either, why today of all days her life should end, and she’s curious to find out.  
  
The girl stopped at a cafe right now. It’s still light out, although it looks like it may get dark soon; late afternoon, is that what they call it? She’s never bothered paying that much attention to the affairs of the human world. The sky doesn’t change in the Shinigami realm; it’s always just another shade of grey.  
  
She has a red hat on. She’s sipping from a small cup and eating a slice of human cake topped with juicy-looking fruit. Rem always thought the food in the human world looked delicious; much better, at least, than the shriveled, sandy garbage they get in the Shinigami realm. From the numbers hovering above her forehead, Rem can see that the girl has no more than a few hours left. It will happen at night, then. Before the start of the next day, but long after she has finished her meal.  
  
Rem can’t see her face very well, but it seems that she decides to leave after turning to the window and noticing how the sky is getting dimmer.  
  
“She has a long way to walk.” Gelus says softly, never tearing his eyes off the girl. “Before she can get home.”  
  
He spends all day doing this. She doesn’t know how; she’s getting antsy already. Is this human girl really that mesmerizing? Important enough for him to memorize all the streets and houses and shops in her area so he knows exactly how far away she is from her home?  
  
She stops at a magazine store on the way, picks up a few fashion magazines, spends a little while looking fondly over the magical girl mangas before deciding against it. Rem wants to scream at her, to shake her by the shoulders, to tell her that her time is running out and she doesn’t have time to buy magazines and she should get back to the safety of her home as soon as possible and can’t she see she only has half an hour left? Twenty minutes? Fifteen?  
  
The sky is entirely dark when it happens. She turns into an alleyway, and Gelus makes a sound of dismay, because he must know from all his obsessive watching that this is not a good alleyway for a young pretty girl to walk through when the sky is this dark.  
  
She has three minutes left when the man appears. He is tall and rugged, and as he melts out of the shadows Rem realizes with alarm that she can’t tell how long he’s been there. Was he following her since the magazine store? Since the cafe?  
  
He sways unsteadily towards her, and she can’t hear what they’re saying but she can see the crazed glint in his eyes and the girl stepping back fearfully.  
  
Less than two minutes left.  
  
A sudden sound from beside her pulls her out of her trance. Gelus is rocking back and forth on his feet, shrieking and moaning in utter distress, a complete and utter mess as he watches the scene unfold before him.  
  
“Gelus.” Rem says sharply.  
  
He shakes his head, sputtering half-formed sentences and incoherent words, and with shaking hands he begins to pull out his Death Note.  
  
“Gelus, what are you doing?” Rem says, but he ignores her, eyes frantically darting across the scene in the portal in front of them. The girl has a minute and thirteen seconds left. Twelve. Eleven. Ten.  
  
“Tsu...to...mu...Yu...ki...da...” He breathes, scribbling in his note, and Rem’s eyes widen as she realizes what he’s doing. He’s writing down the stalker’s name. He’s saving the girl’s life.  
  
She’s never seen it happen before, never even heard of it, never considered the possibility. But she doesn’t have time to open her mouth and warn him of the potential consequences, tell him to just let it go, that it doesn’t matter, before he throws down his pen with a definitive clatter and looks up, a grin stretching across his face.  
  
He’s done it.  
  
She has fifty-eight seconds left.  
  
She’s backing up into the corner of the alleyway now, and the man is still saying something to her, this time much more vehemently; his whole chest is moving as he speaks. Rem can see the girl shaking. She must be trembling extremely hard for it to be noticeable even from so far away.  
  
The man pulls out a knife. Twenty-two seconds.  
  
He begins charging at her, and the girl drops her bag and lifts her hand in front of her face. Rem doesn’t have to be able to hear to know that she is screaming.  
  
Eighteen seconds. 

_____

“ _I’m in love with you, and I always have been!_ ”  
  
He seemingly came out of nowhere, jumping suddenly out of the dark shadows of the alleyway. There was something dangerously unstable about the way he moved towards her, the way his eyes flitted around manically. And as he began to speak, she realized with a chill that he must have been following her for a long time.  
How long, exactly?  
  
She could feel her legs start to tremble uncontrollably as her heart rate sped up. She backed up as he tried to get closer to her, her mind racing. How could she get him to leave? Was there any chance he’d calm down? Was there any chance someone would come and help her? Of course not. She was all alone, in the middle of the night, in a completely empty alleyway, cornered by a crazy stalker. No one was going to save her. _Stupid, stupid girl._ Hot tears began trickling down her cheeks. _What were you thinking? Now you’re going to die here. He’s going to kill you._  
  
Because of course, he was armed. Of course he had a knife, and he was charging at her, and there was nothing she could do but cry out in anguish and fear and hold her hands in front of her face as if that would do anything at all to protect her.  
  
_At least I’ll see you again._ She thought, as she squeezed her eyes shut. _Mom, dad. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault._  
  
But death did not come.  
  
At first she thought she had already died, and her brain had simply not caught on to that fact yet. But then she heard a strained choking noise and the unmistakable clatter of metal hitting the ground, and she slowly lowered her arms to take in the scene in front of her.  
  
The man had collapsed very suddenly, no more than two feet away from her, and was clutching at his chest desperately as he tried to take in a breath. His eyes bulged wildly for a moment before clouding over, and then he fell completely still.  
  
Misa was suddenly aware of her loud, ragged breathing, which was now the only thing making any sound in the alleyway. Reality was starting to swim in front of her, the same way it had so many months ago when she had run downstairs to find the sight of her parents lying in their own blood. In her mind, she was still in the alleyway. She was still cowering in the corner, waiting for death. But somehow her legs managed to start sprinting towards the direction of her house, and her hands managed to find her keys and unlock the door, even as she replayed what had felt like her final moments over and over again like a broken record. 

_____

“And then what did you do?”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
Misa blinked and looked up. Her therapist was looking at her with an expectant, albeit gentle, expression.  
  
“Once you managed to get home, do you remember what you did after that?”  
  
“I... went to sleep, I guess. I don’t know. It all feels like a blur.”  
  
“And what did you do the next day? When you woke up?”  
  
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”  
  
“Did you have coffee in the morning? Do you remember what you ate?”  
  
“No, I… I don’t know. I don’t remember. I’m sorry.” She lowered her gaze, absently taking note of her surroundings as if to remind herself that they were really there. A round blue rug. Two black leather comfy chairs. An abstract analog clock on the wall. A small desk in the corner with a plaque reading _Kazue Ishikawa, MD._  
  
“That’s all right.” Ishikawa said gently. “Just tell me if you remember doing anything significant between that night and our meeting today.”  
  
“I don’t think I did. I don’t know. I was afraid to go out… I think I just watched the news, mostly. It hasn’t been that long, you know. That was, what, two days ago?”  
  
Ishikawa inhaled slightly, and Misa looked up at her with alarm.  
  
“What?”  
  
Ishikawa hesitated for a moment, before levelling her eyes with Misa’s. “Misa, you said this happened the same day of your last court meeting, right?”  
“Yeah… I do remember that much. I remember because I was wearing my blazer.”  
  
“Your court meeting was on November 12th. Today is November 18th, Misa. It’s been six days.”  
  
Misa blinked and looked down at her hands. “Oh.” The word felt heavy in her mouth.  
  
“Misa, this isn’t good.” Ishikawa began, not bothering to hide the concern in her voice. “You’ve already shown symptoms of post-traumatic stress from the incident that occured last May. To be re-traumatized in this way after making so much progress…”  
  
These words jarred something in Misa’s memory, and she jumped to her feet suddenly in alarm. “Ishikawa, please forget I said anything just now!”  
  
“What?” Ishikawa looked completely taken aback. “Misa, you know I can’t do that. I have to put in my report that you’re experiencing PTSD again from a secondary incident-”  
  
“ _No!_ ” Misa shook her head vehemently. “Mikami said Kuroda’s lawyer is going to call you in as a witness, to prove that my testimony is unreliable. If they know that this happened just a few days ago, they’ll just use it as further evidence that I’m not in my right mind!” She fell to her knees and clasped her arms together, and her voice trembled as she continued. “Please, _please_ , I can’t afford to let that happen. I’m already losing this case. Please.”  
  
Ishikawa looked down at her with pain and pity in her eyes. “Misa… I’m sorry. I promise I’ll do everything I can not to contribute to them painting you in that light. I don’t have to disclose this information to them if it isn’t relevant. But I do need to put it in my record, for your sake. Is that alright?”  
  
Misa bowed her head, feeling slightly embarrassed for putting on such a display. “A- Alright.” She got up and dusted her knees off.  
  
“It looks like we’re overtime for today.” Said Ishikawa, glancing at the clock on her wall. “Try to practice the grounding exercises we went over, alright? And Misa, take care of yourself.”  
  
The older woman placed her hand gently on Misa’s arm for a moment. Misa nodded.  
  
“I’ll try. Thank you, Ishikawa. Same time next week.” 

_____

__There is no color in the Shinigami realm. But Gelus’s ashes glitter beneath her feet, reflecting off of a light Rem cannot see. She leans over and gently picks up his Death Note with her skeletal fingers.  
  
Shinigami do not generally get sad. This is not to say that they cannot feel emotion, that they cannot fall in love; but it is rare for an immortal being to feel anything as deeply as a mortal would. Ryuk craves apples. Armonia likes jewelry. Sidoh isn’t very bright. And Rem… Rem is curious. Not morbidly so. But curious enough to hang around Gelus when he peered into the human world, and curious enough to pick up his note after he has died.  
  
Died.  
  
It is a strange thing, for a god of death to die. Before today, Rem would not have been able to say with certainty whether it was even possible. Yes, theoretically, a Shinigami must keep writing down names in order to keep extending its lifespan, but this feat is so easy, so mindless, that no one ever bothers to consider the alternative. The possibility of a friend’s death was never on Rem’s radar.  
  
She doesn’t know whether she feels sad. But she feels… odd.  
  
And she is curious. Curious as to how Gelus could have cared so much about one human that he was willing to do anything to protect her. She’s certainly never met a Shinigami who felt emotions _that_ strongly. She wonders what he saw in her dainty heels and little red hat, in her Shoujo mangas and strawberry shortcake.  
  
She strokes her fingernails absentmindedly across the leather cover of the notebook. A Shinigami doesn’t need two notebooks. She considers just keeping it on her belt, never using it, as a token of sorts, but something about that makes her feel uncomfortable. Should she just leave it there? No, she feels strangely protective over it now. She doesn’t want another Shinigami coming and taking it. Besides, she doesn’t trust a lot of the others.  
  
The thought that perhaps she should move somewhere less out in the open just begins to cross her mind when she hears a familiar croon of excitement.  
  
“My my, Rem, what have you got there?”  
  
She doesn’t bother to hide the distaste on her face. Of all the Shinigami she would want imposing on her right now, Ryuk falls pretty near the bottom of her list.  
  
“It’s none of your business.” She begins, but he’s already hopped down in front of her and caught sight of the note in her hand.  
  
“That’s not your note, is it?” His eyes trail down to her belt, where her own note is still safely strapped. His eyes light up. “It isn’t! Say, Rem, how’d you manage to snag a second Death Note?”  
  
She scowls. “Why would you want to know? I don’t trust your intentions, Ryuk.”  
  
He cackles loudly. “I have nothing to hide from you. If you really want to know, I’ve been trying to get my hands on another Death Note myself recently. I think it could be… fun, to experiment with.”  
  
“I really do not want to know about your idea of ‘fun.’”  
  
“Ohhh, but don’t you?” His eyes twinkle mischievously. “I’ve seen you hanging around Gelus, observing the human world with him. Are you curious about the human world, Rem?”  
  
Rem opens her mouth to answer, but finds that she doesn’t quite know what to say.  
  
“I… am curious about many things.”  
  
“Uh huh. Uh huh. Right.” He somersaults closer to her and jabs a long, clawed finger into Gelus’s book.  
  
“With that, you’d be able to go to the human world.”  
  
She looks down at the book in her hands, and flicks through it almost absentmindedly. Gelus’s handwriting is a sloppy scrawl, uneven against the lines on the page.  
  
“Say, who does it belong to anyway?” Ryuk asks, craning over her shoulder to try and read what’s inside.  
  
She’s not going to tell Ryuk what happened. Absolutely not. Who knows what he would do with that information. But how can she answer his question? It doesn’t belong to Gelus anymore. Gelus is dead. But it doesn’t really feel like it belongs to her, either. She picked it out of a pile of his ashes. She was nothing more than a bystander.  
  
Rem stops when she gets to the page with Tsutomu Yukida’s name on it. The writing is desperate, much larger and shakier than any of the other names. He wrote it without a moment’s hesitation. He gave his life for this human girl.  
  
She closes the book and looks up at Ryuk. “Excuse me. I have some business to attend to.”_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Hi! This is my first published fanfiction so please bear with me. I can’t promise to be consistent with updates or chapter length, and I also can’t promise good writing, but I do have basically the entire plotline mapped out so expect this story to have a lot of content… eventually.  
> -I expect a lot of you will be coming from my TikTok of the same username (crypticapricity). If not, you can follow me on there where I’ll probably be posting updates. I also do cosplay!  
> -This fic was originally posted on fanfiction.net, you can find it there by the same name and author but I figured I'd put it up here as well for accessibility  
> -The concept of Mikami being Misa’s lawyer is taken from the Death Note Japanese drama, as well as the film adaptations.  
> -The name Tsutomu Yukida is also taken from the Japanese drama.


	2. Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After her conversation with Ryuk, Rem pays a visit to the human world with Gelus's notebook.

Misa poked at the last remaining piece of ginger in her tray with her chopstick. She’d barely been able to find the motivation to eat recently, let alone cook, and the steadily growing pile of takeout containers in her trash bin were a testament to that fact. She’d only been able to finish half of her maki roll, but ginger was easier to stomach. She brought the piece into her mouth with a satisfying crunch. 

The next court meeting was tomorrow, on the 21rst, and the mere thought of going filled her with hopeless dread. The mannequin in her room displayed the outfit she would wear: a lacy black blouse and pink jeans, paired with heeled booties and some modest earrings. It was the best she could come up with using only what was in her closet. She had thrown away the outfit she’d been wearing on the 12th immediately the following day, and she couldn’t bring herself to go shopping again.

She didn’t like walking alone anymore.

She didn’t want to admit that it had affected her. She’d already experienced one devastating and life-threatening incident, after all, and wasn’t that enough? No, the incident with the stalker wasn’t a problem at all. She had managed to escape uninjured, and the man was dead now. There was nothing to worry about.

Except that she didn’t dare to look out of her windows anymore, for fear that she would find a wide-eyed lunatic staring back at her, waiting for the next moment to strike. Every drop of rain that pattered on the ground sounded like menacing footsteps in her ears. She couldn’t stop picturing that alleyway the way it had looked through her trembling fingers, and sometimes in her dreams she swore she could feel the stalker’s glinting knife plunging through her chest. She’d felt this way before, in the aftermath of the burglary. Like she had somehow cheated. Like she wasn’t supposed to still be alive. He would have killed her, she knew, and though it was a thought she would prefer not to have it seemed to repeat over and over in her mind like a mantra. _You should be dead. You should be dead._ Not a wish, or a promise, but a simple statement of fact. The only reason she was still alive right now was because of some insane stroke of luck, or perhaps the work of a benevolent god, deciding that the perfect time for that man to die of a sudden heart attack was right before he had the chance to slaughter her.

The world was terrifying and dangerous, and she no longer felt like she belonged as a part of it. At least in her room she could pretend nothing else existed. She could pretend to feel safe.

A flash of lightning lit up the dim room, and Misa suddenly became aware of a huge, dark shadow looming over her bed. 

She screamed and rolled onto the floor in a heap of pink blankets. _It’s a burglar it’s a stalker it’s a murderer you’re going to die you’re going to die he’s going to kidnap you and rape you and kill you-_

“Please do not be afraid.”

Misa froze. The voice was low and resolute, but it sounded distinctly female. The knot in her chest loosened slightly, but her skin was still crawling with the knowledge that the safety of her bedroom had been compromised. 

“ _Get out of my house!_ ” She shrieked, trying to sound threatening and not feel pathetic from her cowering position on the ground. 

“I only came to give you something.” Said the stranger calmly. “It belongs to you.”

Slowly, cautiously, Misa lifted her head.

The being was irregularly tall, towering at least two feet taller than her even though it was slightly bent over. It had very broad shoulders, long arms, and an impossibly cinched waist. Even stranger still, the figure seemed to be wearing some kind of hard, latticed white armor that covered its entire body… the form of the armor almost looked skeletal, and paired with the figure’s abnormal height it was certainly a strange sight to behold. But it was the face that really sent a chill up Misa’s spine. It was a face that, for lack of any better description, did not look quite human. Reptilian yellow eyes, one of which was covered in a bandage, an upturned nose with slitted nostrils, and a wide purple mouth that showed off sharp fangs.

“Eughh!” A noise of fear and disgust rolled involuntarily off Misa’s tongue. “What _are_ you???” She peered hesitantly at the being’s skeletal figure. It must be either a very strange angel or some kind of elaborate costume, she decided, but she was too nervous to get any closer and take a better look. “You’re not like any stalker I’ve ever seen.” 

“I come from the Shinigami realm.” The being said. “My name is Rem.”

A large pair of bat-like white wings unfolded from its back and it began to hover just a few inches above the carpeted floor. 

Misa shrieked and scrambled backwards. She watched the figure beat its wings methodically several times, blinking widely as if she would be able to comprehend another explanation if she stared long enough.

“A…. Shinigami?”

“Yes. I have come here to bring you this.” 

The Shinigami extended a skeletal hand out towards her and Misa flinched, but Rem merely dropped a thin black notebook onto her lap. Confused, Misa picked it up. The cover was black and leatherbound, with strange unfamiliar characters painted on the front in white lettering.

“What… does it say? I can’t read it.”

“This is the tool that Shinigami use to keep ourselves immortal. We call it the Death Note.” Said Rem. “Once you know the name of a human and can picture their face in your mind, you can write down their name in this book and they will die.”

“ _Die_?” Misa’s eyes widened. “Just from writing their name?”

“If you write only their name, the human will die of a heart attack after forty seconds. If you choose to write details surrounding the cause and time of death, within reason, these details will also come true.”

Hesitantly, Misa opened the notebook and began flicking through the pages. A good third of the book was filled with small, crooked handwriting detailing hundreds of names, many in Japanese, but many others in languages and alphabets she was unfamiliar with. The last page with any writing on it was empty except for one name, written in big, shaky letters, and Misa could almost feel the desperation of the person who had penned it. _Tsutomu Yukida._

A sudden chill ran up Misa’s spine and the book fell to the floor. _Tsutomu Yukida._ A voice she had tried desperately to block out rang loudly in her ears. _My name is Tsutomu Yukida. I’m in love with you, and I always have been! I will take you as my bride!_

“What is this?” She choked out. “Who are you?”

“This notebook belonged to another Shinigami I knew.” Said Rem. “His name was Gelus... and he was in love with a human girl. Every day he would watch her through a portal in our realm, obsessively observing her daily life. He was apprehensive, you see, because he could see her lifespan, as every Shinigami can, and he knew the day she was fated to die. When that day came, he was almost beside himself with morbid curiosity. I was curious too, to see what would happen to her, so I sat down next to him and watched as well. 

“The girl was cornered by someone in an alleyway. He charged at her with a knife. Her time was about to run out. But Gelus did something I had never seen before… He wrote the name of the attacker in his notebook. He saved the girl’s life that day, but in return he did something Shinigami are never supposed to do. He extended a life rather than cutting it short.

“Do you know on what day he saved that girl from death?”

Misa’s throat felt completely drained of moisture. The room was starting to blur around her, a strange floating feeling emerging from the pit of her chest. “November 12th.” She said, barely aware that she was speaking. “Eight days ago.”

Rem bowed her head. “After Gelus died, his remaining lifespan was transferred to you. I can see all the years he added to your life right now, floating above your head. And that’s not all he left behind.”

Rem jabbed a bony finger at the open book on the ground. “This notebook belongs to you.” She said. “I don’t care what you do with it. But I already have my own note, and I don’t want to trouble myself with another one. This is the only way I feel that I can truly honor Gelus’s memory. I feel that he would have wanted you to have it.”

Misa felt like she was moving in slow motion as she leaned down to pick up the book again. If this was real, if anything this… _creature_ had said was true, she was holding quite possibly the most powerful weapon in the world in her hands. Just the thought of all the people who she knew the names and faces of, all the people for whom she could easily find that information, all the people she could potentially control and kill- not that she’d ever want to, of course, because murder was wrong, she had experienced firsthand the horror and grief that came with murder at the hands of-

_Kenshin Kuroda._

Slowly, subtly, the room began to shift into focus again. _Kenshin Kuroda._ The man who had killed her parents in cold blood. The man who was dragging out her pain and suffering long past its due, lying about the egregious crime he had committed, avoiding the punishment he deserved. The man who had ruined her life and who knew how many other lives, who would stare at her tomorrow with a horribly cruel grin and no remorse in his murderous eyes. If everything this creature had said was true, she could kill him right now. She could wipe that grin off his face. She could make him suffer the same way she had. 

Before her brain even had the chance to process what she was doing, Misa grabbed a pink gel pen from her desk and flipped the notebook open to the first empty page she saw.

_Kenshin Kuroda_. Her handwriting was smaller, rounder, neater than the previous scrawlings of Gelus the Shinigami. _Shoots himself in the chest in the living room of his own house._ The image of him, helplessly bleeding out on the floor the same way he had left Misa’s poor parents, realizing this was his final retribution for all the sins he had committed, made Misa’s lips curl up in glee. With a hungry glint in her eyes, she wrote one last sentence: _In his own blood, he writes the words ‘I’m sorry, Amane’ on the ground before dying._

She would make him pay, whether he wanted to or not. She would get the apology she deserved, even if she had to force it out of him with his last dying breath.  
She looked up at the Shinigami, feeling slightly lightheaded from emotion. Perhaps this ‘Death Note’ wasn’t real after all. But either way, she couldn’t deny how cathartic it had felt to do that.

The Shinigami- Rem- was looking at her with an unreadable expression. Her eyes looked somehow narrowed and widened at the same time. Misa tilted her head slightly and stared back, questioningly. 

“So now what?”

Rem looked down at the notebook in Misa’s hands and blinked. “Who is this…” she bent down. “Kenshin Kuroda?”

Hearing someone else speak the name made Misa’s chest clench. 

“A terrible, terrible man. He deserves the fate I gave him.”

“You know him personally?”

Misa winced. “You could say that.”

“Then would you have a way of checking right now to confirm that he has died?”

“Oh…..” She imagined calling up Mikami and casually asking him whether Kuroda had been found dead in his home. If somehow this notebook was real, it would certainly look incredibly suspicious when they went to investigate and actually discovered his body. “I guess not.”

“Then I suppose there is no ‘now what.’ If you want to know whether or not to believe in the power of the book, you would have to write down the name of someone you can check on immediately.”

“But I can’t just do that! I can’t kill someone just as a test. It has to be someone who really deserves it. Like Kuroda.”

“Suit yourself.” Said Rem with a slight shrug.

Misa sighed and flopped down onto her bed, eyelids fluttering shut. “Oh well. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up anyway. It was a nice idea, at least.”

_____

The sky was a gradually lightening shade of grey when Misa woke up with a start, heart pounding, sweating profusely. The Shinigami was nowhere to be seen. It took her a moment to process what had woken her up, until she adjusted to reality and realized that her phone was ringing.

She picked it up. The display screen told her that it was just past 6 am, and Mikami was calling her.

She flipped the phone open. “Hello?”

“Misa!” There was a strange quality to Mikami’s voice that she had never really heard before; a certain level of emotion he usually kept carefully reserved. He seemed to be in some public area; there was a buzz of noise in the background on his line.

“Misa, I’m sorry if I woke you. But I thought you would want to know as soon as possible. The trial….. the trial has been cancelled for today.”

“Cancelled?” Misa rubbed her eyes, suddenly feeling much more awake. “Why?”

There was a moment of hesitation on the other line, before Mikami finally responded.

“Kenshin Kuroda has been found dead in his home.”

The phone slipped through Misa’s shaking fingers and fell with a muffled thump onto the carpeted floor. _No. No no no. No way. This can’t be real. I’m still dreaming._

She pinched the skin on her forearm hard, shutting her eyes tightly, but when she opened them again the only thing that had changed was that Rem, the Shinigami, was once again looming over her bed. She was wordless, but there was a certain glint of calm triumph in her eyes. Perhaps a Shinigami’s way of saying _I told you so._

Misa suddenly became aware of the muffled noise coming from her phone. She took a deep breath and picked it up off the ground.

“—You alright? Misa?”

“Sorry, sorry.” Misa heard her own voice ringing through her ears with a tinned quality, as if it, too, was coming through a receiver. “It’s just…. I mean…. did I hear that right? He’s…. dead?”

“Yeah, and that’s not all.” Mikami lowered his voice. “He was found just recently, so there isn’t enough evidence to say for sure yet, but it looks like a suicide. In fact…. well…. it looks like it may have been a confession of his guilt.”

Another pang shot through Misa’s chest. Her mind was racing rapidly, a million thoughts interrupting each other all at once. “What do you mean?” She heard herself say.

The words “I’m sorry, Amane” were found next to him in what looks like his own blood. And it looks like he shot himself the same way he…. did to the victims. Of course, further analysis will reveal any evidence of a potential third party involved, but as of now it seems the most likely explanation would be…”

The noise that came out of Misa was a sort of strangled cry. Her mind was still racing- _you didn’t even mean to- but of course- when you consider the implications-_ but eventually all her thoughts died down until only one was left running through her head: _I finally made you pay._

“Misa?”

Misa opened her mouth to try and assure Mikami once again that she was alright, but the only thing she could get out were choked sobs. There were tears freely streaming down her face now, and she absentmindedly lifted her hand to her damp cheek as if to affirm that they were real.

“It’s just….. _finally_ …..” Was what she managed to get out, after several moments. She didn’t care if it made her look heartless, or suspicious. She wasn’t thinking about any of that right now.

There was a pause from the other end.

“I understand.” Said Mikami, in a surprisingly gentle tone. “I thought you might have a similar reaction. It must feel gratifying, after all this time, to know at last that his guilt may be proven after all.” He paused again, and it was in a much quieter voice that he continued, “Between you and me, Misa, I must say I also felt gratified upon learning what happened. I’ve been working as a lawyer for so long, and to see someone meet their fate like this after coming so close to slipping through the cracks… perhaps there is a God out there who cares about bringing justice to evildoers after all.”

Misa swallowed her tears with a gulp, slightly surprised at Mikami’s words. She had trusted him because she knew he truly cared about right and wrong. But she had never realized how deeply he’d felt, even just about this case… could it be that she wasn’t the only one Kuroda’s death had given hope to?

“Mikami… thank you for calling. I think I’d like to be alone for a bit now, if that’s alright.”

She barely paid attention to his reassuring response as she snapped her phone shut and tossed it onto her bed.

“There, Misa Amane. There is your proof.” Rem’s low voice resonated through the room. “The power of the Death Note is real. And it is yours to use however you wish.”

Slowly, Misa bent over to pick up the book on the floor. She held it up in front of her face, staring blankly at it for several moments. Then she stood up, walked right past her mannequin, and opened her dresser.

_____

The sky was grey, but it wasn’t quite drizzling. A cruel irony. The scene would have been prettier if it was raining, she thought. But then again, she hadn’t brought her umbrella. Perhaps it would be better not to let her dress get soaked.

She’d done a graveyard photoshoot once. She’d worn a similar lacy gothic outfit to the one she was wearing right now. The graves she had posed in front of had all been faded and crumbled, the names completely rubbed off, moss growing in the cracks. But the gravestones in front of her right now were mockingly pristine. The smooth rock they were carved from glistened in the light, and the carvings were unmistakably clear:

**Hikari Amane  
September 8th, 1952 - May 19th, 2003  
Beloved father, husband, and friend  
_Hold my hand in the dark street,  
for if you do I know that I'll be safe._**

**Aiko Amane  
April 23rd, 1956 - May 19th, 2003  
Beloved mother, wife, and friend  
_Even if I'm far away and alone,  
I can be sure that you'll find me there._**

Misa’s knees trembled as she forced herself to kneel onto the grass in front of the gravestones slowly, rather than collapsing into a heaping mess. Hot tears rolled down her face and dripped into the bouquet of flowers she held in her hands. Every time she came here, she was overwhelmed with the thought that their cold bodies were lying six feet under her, rotting slowly into the earth. Her throat would start to close up until she felt like she could no longer breathe. Yet she couldn’t stop herself from coming here again and again.

She hastily wiped her tears on the sleeve of her dress before gently placing the flowers she had bought on each of their graves. Then she crawled into the space right in the middle of their two tombstones and brought her knees up to her chest. Sitting like this always brought a strange feeling of comfort; the closest she’d ever come to feeling their arms around her again.

“Hi mom. Hi dad.” Her voice was still thick with tears. She cleared her throat before continuing in a slightly less shaky voice.

“Do you… do you remember what I promised you, a while ago? Every day for those first few months, I promised you I would make him pay for what he did. It was my fault, I know it was, and you must have known as well. My fault for showing the world that I was a pretty little model with nice things that could be stolen. It was all my fault and you were the ones that got hurt over it-” Her voice broke off into a strangled sob.

“So I promised I would make it up to you. But I was so afraid I’d have to break that promise… I was so afraid he’d never get the justice he deserved. It was so, so scary to spend every day thinking about how many people he had convinced of his innocence. Scary, and… _infuriating_. And disheartening. It made me want to give up on everything in the world.” 

She reached into her purse and pulled out the thin black notebook. “But then something happened.”

She hadn’t been able to stop staring at it, ever since that morning. It was mesmerizing. Flipping through the pages, running her hands along the smooth leather cover, knowing exactly what it was capable of…

“I don’t know why this was given to me.” She held it out, as if her parents were right in front of her and would be able to see it better in the light. “I don’t know why that Shinigami felt so strongly that he was in love with me… I don’t know why so many people seem to feel that way.” She snorted bemusedly. “But by some twist of destiny, it’s mine now. I used it to make Kenshin Kuroda pay. I kept my promise, mom and dad…” Her voice broke again and she buried her head in her knees, clutching the Death Note like a lifeline until her knuckles turned white.

After a moment, she lifted her head, wiped her eyes again, and continued softly. “I did it because I knew he wouldn’t pay otherwise. Mikami works for the justice system, he works so hard to fight for what’s just, and even he believed Kuroda would get off the trial without punishment. What kind of ‘justice’ is that, anyway?” She lifted her face angrily to the sky, as if she were shouting the question to some invisible person up there. But of course, no one answered. She hung her head again with a sigh.

“If I’d gotten this book before, I could have saved us so many months of pain and suffering. I could have made him pay from the beginning.” She held the book in front of her again, tilting her head and watching the soft shimmer of light bounce off the front. 

“If I’d gotten this book before,” She said even more softly. “Maybe I could have saved you both in the first place.”

Mikami’s words echoed back in her head. _Perhaps there is a God out there who cares about bringing justice to evildoers after all._

“Maybe if Kenshin Kuroda had lived in a world where he knew there was a God who punished evildoers, and not a corrupt system he could easily trick, maybe he wouldn’t have tried to rob me that night. Maybe he wouldn’t have brought a gun. Maybe he wouldn’t have dared to shoot it.”

She wasn’t sure who she was talking to anymore; her parents, herself, the notebook, the tall skeletal shadow she was vaguely aware of hovering in the distance, or the empty skies again.

“After using this… I don’t feel hopeless anymore. I did something. I did something so big, and I felt so good about it… and now I don’t know what to do. How many other girls have had to break promises in front of gravestones and make up for it in flowers because the world was far crueler than they could have known? How many lives could I be saving?” Her desperate cries rang out through the empty graveyard.

“You both wanted me to grow up in a safe world. That was all you wanted, was to protect me, to protect my happiness.” 

“I can make the world safe now, mom and dad. I couldn’t save you… but I can save everyone else. I can save myself.”

She took a deep breath and stood up, brushing the dirt off of her petticoat, and levelled her eyes with the Shinigami hovering several yards away as she spoke again.

“With this notebook… I can build a better world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Not a lot happens in this chapter; I needed a lot of internal monologuing to try and establish Misa's motivations as Kira. It will get more interesting very soon, I promise.
> 
> -The writing on Misa's parents' gravestones are lyrics taken from the English translation of her song in ep. 25.
> 
> -The canon writing on Gelus's notebook is ARVC-5, a reference to a gene that can cause sudden heart attacks. This is why Misa can't read it.
> 
> -Reminder to follow my TikTok crypticapricity for more updates, Death Note content, and cosplay!


	3. Confrontation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Misa begins her reign of wiping out criminals, the public starts to notice and take interest in this new vigilante killer known as "Kira."

“I think something I didn’t expect to appreciate so much, with the trials being over now, is all the extra time I have.” Misa said with a light laugh.

“And how have you been spending these extra hours?” 

“Mmm… I guess you could call it ‘me time.’ It’s a lot of just, like, relaxing around my apartment. My agency keeps getting me sponsored for all these skincare and beauty products… I’m using this cherry vanilla scented body wash now, and it smells sooo good!”

“Misa, that’s wonderful.” Ishikawa said with a warm smile. “I’m so glad you’re taking the time for self-care. I’d be the first to say you deserve it.”

“Yeah.” Misa’s smile flickered slightly. “It almost doesn’t feel real, you know? It’s like, too good to be true.” A jolt of panic shot through her chest. “Not that I would ever wish death on someone- of course- it’s just-”

“It had a positive impact on your life.” Ishikawa nodded. “It’s completely normal to feel that way, Misa. This man caused a lot of great pain to you and your family. You’ve been having to deal with that raw pain and stress consistently for the past few months. Now you don’t have to worry about any of it anymore… if you didn’t feel at all relieved I think I’d be more worried.” She smiled. “It would have been quite another thing if you’d gone out to seek this man and end his life for your own sake, of course. But he made that decision himself. He must have truly thought, in the end, that it was the fate he deserved.”

Misa stared at a speck on the carpet, trying hard not to fidget. “...Yeah. I’m… a little surprised, I guess. I never expected him to feel any sort of remorse.”

“We can never truly know what others are thinking.”

“I guess not.” Misa murmured.

“How have you been sleeping since the trials ended? Are the nightmares any less frequent? I know you were retraumatized recently, which I’m sure put a dent in your mental recovery…”

“I actually haven’t had much trouble with the… eh… stalker thing.” Misa said. “The first few days I was pretty paranoid about going outside, but now… I don’t know how to explain it. It almost feels like I have a guardian angel with me.” Her eyes flickered briefly to the corner of the room. “When I heard there were going to be no more trials, I went down to the shopping district to celebrate. I wasn’t nervous or anything. It was really fun.”

“That’s great to hear, Misa.” Ishikawa said encouragingly. “For someone like you, who has had to experience so much suffering, it might be easy to think that the world is entirely rotten and dangerous. But I want you to remember that for every time something bad has happened to you, there are thousands of other times nothing bad has happened at all. For every cruel person out there, there are good, honest people like you and me, brightening this world up just a little bit. And doesn’t that count for something?”

Misa smiled sincerely. “Yes. I think if all the good people work really hard, we can make the world a safer place for everyone.” 

“I think so too.” Ishikawa returned the smile, before glancing at the clock on the wall. “Well, I think that concludes our time for today. Let me know how you’re feeling next week, alright? Here, I’ll walk you out.”

The small, wall-mounted TV in the waiting room was tuned in to the local news station as Misa and Ishikawa stepped out of the office. A well-groomed man with greying hair was reporting live in the studio while smaller headlines scrolled at the bottom of the screen.

“-more and more people are beginning to suspect these unexplained deaths are the work of a mastermind vigilante serial killer. This elusive figure has been dubbed the name ‘Kira’ by the general public, after the English word for ‘killer.’”

“Maybe it’s a good thing Kuroda chose to take his fate into his own hands, eh?” Ishikawa said with a lighthearted grin. “Otherwise, this ‘Kira’ figure might have gotten to him instead.”

Misa forced herself to grin back. “Haha… yeah.”

__________

In Lyon, France, the clock had just struck 1 pm. But in Tokyo, where L Lawliet was currently residing, the sun had set hours ago. Not that it made any difference. The base he was in had been built entirely underground. The only current source of light for the greatest detective in the world was the soft bluish glow of a dozen computer screens displayed in front of him. 

The ICPO meeting was scheduled to start at 1 pm, but they would converse for an estimated 20 minutes before reaching the conclusion that they required his help in this investigation. Watari was already waiting in position outside the conference room, and would alert him approximately 5 minutes before he was expected to speak to them. 

He pulled up the statistics once more on the screen directly to his left. 

November 21rst. A young man later identified to be Shinji Minato collapses suddenly on the street from an apparent heart attack. He is dead by the time paramedics arrive. It is not until two days later that Hiroshi Miyano, Jo Ogura, and Yasushi Watanabe are all confirmed to have been found dead from sudden heart attacks as well. Four victims, all involved in the same infamous crime. All killed in the same way.

Coincidence?

November 22nd. Four more reports of deaths by sudden heart attack. All of them were notorious criminal names in Japan at the time. Issei Sagawa. Yukio Yamaji. Iwao Hakamada. Futoshi Matsunaga. Two of them released despite their crimes. Two of them still on trial. 

November 25th. Seven more incidents reported. Four of them are Japanese. Three of them are from other countries. Robert Durst. Pedro Lopez. OJ Simpson. The pattern continues.

By the time he had received the last report, at 8:00 a.m. GMT that day, the 4th of December, the official death count was at 52. All the victims were either currently wanted, on trial, or walking free after having committed a serious crime. 67% of them were Japanese. 100% of them were male.

This was no coincidence. L was sure of it. There was a clear motive, a clear pattern, little hints of this elusive killer’s personality that he was starting to pick up on. Young. Japanese. Naive. Started killing recently. There was, of course, one gaping hole that threw everything else into question.

_How the hell is he doing it?_

All of the screens in front of him blinked suddenly with a new message from Watari.

**5 minutes, L.**

L took a long, deep breath to ground himself. On the screen to his right, he pulled up the outline for his plan. In order to convince the police that he was worth their time, he needed a big win right off the bat. Answer several questions at once that he and everyone else in the world wanted to know.

**1\. Prove that Kira is, in fact, real:** i.e., that there is a consciousness behind these killings, and it isn’t just a coincidental twist of fate.

**2\. Determine how he kills.** Is Kira one person? Is he an organization? A global, all-powerful group capable of killing people in different countries at the same time, capable of killing those locked securely behind bars, capable of killing criminals in hiding that somehow no one else has been able to catch? Does he shoot them with some serum-filled arrow? Does he frighten his victims to death with apparitions of hunting dogs? Does he bribe the autopsy reporters into giving false statements?

**3\. Determine his limits.** If he is not a god, not some omniscient supernatural force- if he is just another deluded killer, like any of the others L has dealt with, he must have weaknesses. He cannot just decide who lives and who dies with the snap of a finger. 

**4\. Narrow down his location.** Where are you hiding, you monster?

On a screen slightly above this one was a map of Japan, divided into its major regions. 

The largest screen, the one directly in front of him, pinged suddenly. A three second countdown timer, and then he was faced with a conference room of 200 or so participants silently staring at him. Well- of course, he knew they couldn’t actually see _him_. But that was certainly what it felt like.

L took another deep breath and pressed the intercom button. 

“Greetings to all of you at the ICPO.” He began. “I am L.”

The script he had written was displayed on the screen above him, but he didn’t even spare it a glance. He’d memorized what he planned to say word for word already.

“This case is unlike any I have dealt with before. The difficulty of it lies in its unprecedented scope. And make no mistake- what we’re witnessing an atrocious act of murder. One that is unforgivable.” His eyes scanned the audience briefly. He knew that some of them would disagree. There were bound to be those who were quietly rooting for Kira, hoping he could make their jobs easier. Perhaps help them sleep a little better at night. 

“This case cannot be solved without the full cooperation of the ICPO.” He continued. “That is, all of the police organizations you represent throughout the world. You need to make the decision to fully support the investigation at this meeting. 

"Also: I require additional cooperation from Japan’s national police agency.”

He paused here to take in the reactions to this statement. A few faces appeared shocked- one of Japan’s own representatives, a young, bright-eyed man, turned confusedly to the elder on his right- but for the most part, he was met with grim nods of affirmation.

“I see that this statement comes as little surprise to most of you. Good. Yes- I believe that whether the guilty party is an individual or a group, there’s a strong possibility that they are Japanese. Whether they are currently hiding in Japan is information that I plan to uncover when I directly confront the culprit.”

A wave of hushed murmurs ran through the crowd. As expected. A direct confrontation with a faceless figure from another faceless figure was certainly a questionable move to consider.

“A direct confrontation?” Asked the older Japanese representative.

The corners of L’s lips twitched upwards. 

“I can lay out the details of my plan right now. Assuming the ICPO cooperates with my requests, I am confident my confrontation will be successful.”

__________

The TV was blaring a rerun of Misa’s favorite J-drama into the otherwise empty room. Misa paid it little attention as she wrote neatly in a fresh page of her notebook, glancing up at her computer screen to make sure she wasn’t misspelling anything. 

“Misa, you know that you can use the power of the Death Note to kill in any way you want.” Said the Shinigami as she watched Misa work, speaking for the first time that day. “You did this when you killed Kenshin Kuroda. If you keep allowing heart attacks to be the cause of death for every person you murder, people are bound to start suspecting someone is behind these deaths. Surely it is worth it to spend a bit more time covering your tracks, and avoid suspicion?”

Misa giggled. “Rem, you’re so silly. I want people to know about me. You think I haven’t been keeping up with this ‘Kira’ stuff ever since it first started cropping up?” Her freshly painted nails clacked against her computer keyboard as she pulled up a new window. “When you search “Kira”, there are already websites dedicated to my cause. Apparently they took the name from the English word for ‘killer’. It’s a little harsh, but I must admit it does have a cute sort of ring to it.” She clicked on the first link. “Look! This one has such a cool design. I have _supporters_ , Rem. Good people like me, who can see that I’m helping them so that they can live happily and without worry. Meanwhile, the bad guys are starting to get afraid. They’re afraid to do something bad now, because they know I’ll be watching. They can’t get away with it anymore.” A hungry gleam shone in her eyes as she spoke, and she clicked on another link. 

“Oh, look at this! There’s even people trying to help me, so I don’t have to spend time finding all these names myself.” She scrolled down the page of what appeared to be an open forum, where people had submitted names and profiles of criminals for Kira to bring to justice. “Well, some of these don’t have faces, so I guess I’d still have to look that up.” She opened a new tab and began typing into the search bar. 

“ _We interrupt this broadcast now to bring you a live, worldwide broadcast from the International Criminal Police Organization._ ”

“Huh?” Misa whirled around in her spinny chair, to face her TV, which now showed a young, handsome white man with sleek black hair and piercing blue eyes sitting in front of a background with the ICPO logo on it. As the man began to speak in English, open captions at the bottom of the screen translated what he was saying into Japanese. 

**I am the one person who controls the entire planet’s police force: Lind L. Tailor, alias L.**

Misa frowned. _L?_ She’d vaguely heard his name before… some elusive private investigator who was supposedly able to solve any crime imaginable. But wasn’t his whole deal that he had never revealed his identity until now? What the hell was he up to?

**To the murderer who’s targeting criminal after criminal: this is unforgivable, the worst crime in history.**

“ _What?_ ” Misa scoffed. “I thought you were a detective! You’re supposed to be on my side! You want to catch these monsters too, don’t you?”

**Consequently, I will catch the ringleader of these crimes, referred to vulgarly as ‘Kira.’**

“I warned you, Misa.” Said Rem gravely. “I warned you that this would happen. For every supporter you gain, there will be someone else who sees you simply as a mass murderer.”

Misa puffed her bottom lip out. “Whatever. That’s stupid. You think you can catch me, oh-so-great detective? You’ll have to talk to a Shinigami first.” She waved the Death Note in front of the TV screen with a smirk. “You have no proof unless you’ve got this, so there! Try as hard as you want, but you’ll have to give up on me sooner or later.”

**Kira. I can imagine what you must be thinking, to do something like this.** The man continued, staring directly into the camera with his piercing eyes. **But what you are doing... is evil.**

Misa snapped to her feet instantly. 

“ _Evil?_ ” She spat. “ _Evil??_ If you can’t see what I’m doing… if you can’t see that this is exactly what the world needs… you must be the evil one! You must be afraid! You’re afraid, because you see yourself in these bad people, and you think you’re gonna be next! _You’re the evil one!_ ” 

She slammed the Death Note open on her desk, hands shaking with anger.

“If you’re going to talk so much shit,” She hissed under her breath, scratching so deeply onto the paper that it left an imprint on the next page, “At least don’t be an idiot about it. Goodbye, Lind L. Tailor.” She finished inking his name and tossed her pen forcefully onto the floor. 

The man was continuing to blabber on, but she wasn’t bothering to read the captions anymore. Her eyes were focused intently on the clock mounted on her wall, ticking down the seconds until he’d finally collapse. 

_Four… three… two… one… zero._

The man stopped speaking, mid sentence, and his eyes bulged wildly. He gasped, clawing at his chest, and attempted to leap out of his seat before his system shut down and he slumped over onto the table, unmoving.

A sadistic laugh bubbled up in Misa’s throat, and she threw her head back in joyful hysterics.

“Is that really all you’ve got?” She cackled. “Jeez, I’m surprised no one was able to take you down sooner, oh-so-great detective.”

The screen cut away suddenly to a blank image of the English letter **L**. At the same time, a garbled voice rang out in distinct Japanese:

“ _Incredible…_ ” 

Misa froze. 

“ _I… I had to test this just in case… but I… I never thought it would actually happen. Kira... it seems you can kill people without having to be there in person. ...I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t just witnessed it._ ”

“Wh- what?” A gnawing pit began to form at the bottom of Misa’s stomach. “What is this?” 

“ _Listen to me, Kira. If you did indeed kill Lind L. Tailor, the man who you just saw die on television, I should tell you that he was an inmate whose execution was scheduled for today. That was not me._ ”

Misa’s heart beat rapidly with growing panic. _Shit. Shit. What’s going on?_

“ _The police arrested him in absolute secrecy, so you wouldn’t have heard about him on TV or through the internet. It appears that not even you have access to information about these types of criminals. But I assure you, L_ is _real. I_ do _exist._ ”

“ _Ugh!_ ” She threw her notebook at the TV screen in anger. “No, no... god dammit! Who _are_ you??”

“ _Now... try to kill me._ ” 

Misa’s eyes widened, and she gaped at the screen, unable to move or react, like a deer caught in the headlights. _Shit. Shitshitshit._

“ _What’s wrong, hurry up!_ ” There was a mocking lilt to his voice as he continued speaking. “ _Come on, right now, kill me!_ ” 

“I’d love to!” She snapped. “But- ugh- ughhh!”

“ _What are you waiting for? Are you gonna do it?_ ”

“Shut up!! SHUT UP!!!!” 

“Misa…” Rem said warningly. “There are others in this building-”

But Misa paid the Shinigami's words no mind. Tuning out L’s persistent taunts, she whipped around to look at Rem with crazed desperation in her eyes. “Rem, you’re- you’re a Shinigami, right? You can kill him! You can find out who he is, and you can kill him right now. You’d do that for me, right? Just like you watched over me when I was shopping, just like you gave me this book-”

“Even if I were inclined to interfere in this way, I do not know this man’s identity any more than you do.” Said Rem. “There are limits even to a Shinigami’s omnipotence. I would have to at least know what he looked like before I could track him down in such a way.”

“ _Come on!_ ” L said fiercely. “ _Can’t you do it?_ ”

“ _Screw you, you stupid freakish detective!_ ” Misa cried.

The TV was silent for several seconds, almost as if L had heard her and was considering his response.

“ _Well, Kira, it seems that you can’t kill me after all._ ” He said finally. “ _So there are some people you can’t kill… you’ve given me a useful hint. Let me return the favor. I’ll tell you something that I think you’ll find interesting. Although this was announced as a worldwide broadcast, the truth is… we are only broadcasting in the Kanto region of Japan._ ”

Misa’s heart dropped. “No way…”

“ _I had planned to broadcast this message around the world until we found you, but it looks like that won’t be necessary. I now know where you are. We decided to broadcast in Kanto first because of its large population, and luckily we found you. To be completely honest with you, I never expected that things would go this well, but… it won’t be too long now before I am able to sentence you to death._ ” 

Misa spluttered incoherently with every new sentence that L spoke. She backed away from the TV screen in horror, feeling like a cornered animal.

“ _Naturally I’m very interested to know how you’re able to commit these murders without being present, but I don’t mind waiting a little bit longer. L hummed, a definite note of arrogance still in his voice. You can answer all of my questions when I catch you. Let’s meet again soon, Kira. _”__

__And with that, the TV screen abruptly cut to static._ _

__Misa stood in front of it, heaving, red-faced, and at a complete loss for words._ _

_____________ _

“ _Light! Sayu! Dinnertime!_ ” 

Light Yagami blinked and turned away from the small TV screen on his desk at the sound of his mother’s voice. 

“ _Coming!_ ” He called, reaching for the remote to switch off the TV. As he stood up to make his way downstairs, he heard the unmistakable pitter-patter of his sister running down the hall excitedly. 

“OMG, were you watching the broadcast just now?” She exclaimed the moment he stepped out into his doorframe. “Wasn’t that just totally crazy?” 

Light brushed past her and continued to make his way down the stairs. “Yeah, I was watching it right until the moment it ended… it’s a lot to take in.” 

“Is this why dad isn’t home yet, mom?” Sayu asked as she followed Light into the dining room. 

Sachiko’s brows knit together briefly in concern. “It must be… he hasn’t told me yet how involved he is in this ‘Kira’ thing, but he must have some idea of what’s going on considering his position. I’m a bit concerned… this is getting pretty dangerous. Did you see that man who died onscreen at the beginning of the broadcast?” 

“Lind L. Tailor.” Light nodded. “I wondered how the supposed greatest detective in the world could be stupid enough to reveal his name and face on television for Kira to see. I should have realized it was just another part of L’s plan.” 

“Wait a minute!” Sayu shrieked suddenly. “ _We’re_ in the Kanto region of Japan! That means Kira could be anywhere near us, and we wouldn’t have a clue!” 

“Uh-oh, you’ve caught me!” Light said with feigned shame, holding his hands in front of him as if he were about to be cuffed. “That’s right, I am Kira. You’ll find my magic mujrder gun upstairs in my desk drawer, along with a list of criminals I plan on killing tomorrow.” 

Sayu laughed, but Sachiko’s lips pursed with disapproval. “Light, don’t even joke.” She said sharply. “This is serious… now that we know he’s real, he really could be anywhere. I don’t want to have to think about things like whether my son is a mass murderer.” 

“Sorry, mom.” Said Light, lowering his hands. “I can only say that stuff because I know it’s ridiculous to even consider the idea that I might be Kira. I mean, when on earth would I have time to kill dozens of criminals between my CRAM sessions?” 

Sachiko still didn’t look amused, but Sayu only giggled as she brought a piece of egg to her mouth. “You’re so right. Honestly, I don’t know how you can study for that long without going brain-dead. If you don’t get perfect scores on your entrance exam, I’ll die of shock.” 

“Of course he’ll get a perfect score. Can we expect anything else from our Light?” Sachiko smiled warmly at her son. 

Light returned the smile lightly, before looking down to start on his dinner. His mind was still racing from the broadcast he had just witnessed. So Kira was real, in fact he was even hiding somewhere in the same region of the country Light lived in. Was he eating dinner right now as well? Did he have a family? A younger sister? Had he taken his college entrance exams once, too? He was clearly powerful, but he didn’t always seem very careful about covering his tracks. The fact that he was Japanese was no surprise at all to Light- a quick look at the death statistics made that much fairly obvious. And he had jumped at the opportunity to murder the man on TV without considering that he might not be the real L- granted, this had been an oversight on Light’s part as well, but he was sure that if he’d had as much at stake as Kira he would have thought things through more carefully. 

Either way though, it was impressive what L had been able to do from just one broadcast. Light had researched criminology, and he’d certainly heard of L before, but this was the first time he’d actually seen the elusive detective in action, and it had certainly made an unforgettable first impression. Light would love to meet a brilliant mind like that… to learn how the gears turned in his brain, to model himself in the same likeness, perhaps even to surpass him one day in intellect and capability… 

Well, he was getting ahead of himself. He was only 17, after all. He’d at least have to get into university before he started dreaming about working with the greatest detective in the world. 

Still, perhaps when his father came home, Light could ask him some questions about the investigation. It was certainly starting to pique his interest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a lot of references in this chapter, so buckle in. **Warning for discussion of some pretty disturbing true crime events.**  
>  -Misa’s first victims were the four main perpetrators of the Junko Furuta case. If you don’t know this one, it’s probably the most disturbing kidnap/torture/murder case I’ve ever read, and I’m sure it would be one of the first things on Misa’s mind when she started to really consider the injustices of Japan’s legal system. In real life, all four men were released after serving just a few years of jail time. None of them seem to show remorse for their actions to this day. Ogura, who is known to boast about what he did to Furuta, was re-arrested for assault in 2004. Minato was re-arressted in 2018 for attempted murder.  
> -Issei Sagawa killed a woman and then raped and cannibalised her corpse in 1981. He avoided any jail time essentially because he had a wealthy family and found some ridiculous legal loopholes. He’s written books and done interviews about his crime, and remains a free man to this day.  
> -Yukio Yamaji killed his own mother at age 16 in 2000, and was paroled in 2003. In real life, he raped and murdered two women after his release in 2005, and was executed for this in 2009. By killing him in this timeline, Misa prevented the deaths of these two women.  
> -Iwao Hakamada was arrested in 1966 for the murder of his boss and the boss’s family. He was in the 2011 World Records as the longest held death-row inmate, with his conviction being constantly postponed due to suspected corruption of evidence and malpractice regarding his interrogation. He was eventually released in 2014 after the court found him innocent with reason to believe the original evidence against him had been fabricated. Misa never gave him that chance.  
> -Futoshi Matsunaga was a serial killer charged with a string of murders between 2002 and 2003. Similar to Misa’s own case, the trial was largely based on witness testimony from the daughter of one of the victims. In real life he was found guilty in 2005 and executed in 2007, but Misa wasn’t that patient.  
> -You’ve probably already heard of OJ Simpson. “Should Misa Amane kill OJ Simpson” is not a question I ever thought I’d have to ask myself, but here we are. I’m not sure how famous the case is in Japan, but I’m sure she would have been able to find it either way with some research. Ultimately, I decided the questionable circumstances of the trial/evidence and the similarities to her own experience with Kenshin Kuroda would have caused her to consider him guilty and want him to be punished.  
> -Robert Durst is an American who was suspected of murdering two people at the time this story takes place. He admitted to killing and dismembering one of them but he was acquitted of charges by claiming self-defense, which was unable to be disproven due to lack of forensic evidence since the entire body was never recovered. Misa decided she didn’t trust his version of the story and took matters into her own hands. In real life, he was arrested in 2015 for a third suspected murder. His trial has been postponed due to the pandemic.  
> -Pedro Lopez is a Colombian serial killer who, according to his own confession, raped and murdered over 300 young girls across several South American countries. He was arrested in 1980 and released in 1998 for ‘good behaviour’. In real life he is currently wanted by police for another murder that occured in 2002, and his whereabouts are unknown.  
> -I used the names of real-life criminals not as fun little easter eggs, but in the hopes of humanizing Misa at this point in the narrative. She truly believes in her heart that she is making the world a better place by getting rid of these people who might otherwise be able to roam free and keep hurting others. She truly believes that anyone who would be willing to defend the lives of such criminals is a heartless monster as well.  
>  **Warning over**  
>  -Misa refers to L as ‘oh-so-great detective’ a few times in this chapter. This is a reference to a line from the show where she calls him ‘oh-so-great director’ during the Yotsuba arc.  
> -there are also a couple of references in Light’s dialogue to things he actually said in the show; the statement about being able to joke about being Kira because he knows he isn’t, and the faux-confession “that’s right, I am Kira.”  
> -L’s lines in the ICPO meeting and the TV confrontation, as well as Lind L. Tailor’s lines, are all taken from the show with some minor tweaking. I used the dub translation for L’s lines and the sub translation for Lind L. Tailor’s lines because…. It made sense to me? Idk  
> -I’m already working on the next few chapters, which I’m very excited about, and I hope to be able to publish them soon, so, look forward to that I guess?  
> -Also, happy holidays!


End file.
